SO YOU’RE GOING TO SEE BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN? – THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO THE 2024 WORLD TOUR

Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band return for a 25-date, 3-month tour across the UK and Europe this summer. The tour starts on Sunday, 5th May, in Cardiff, going on to Belfast, Kilkenny, Cork, Dublin and Sunderland for a month-long UK and Ireland stretch. In June and July the tour continues on the continent, with shows in France, Czech Republic, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany, and then swinging up for a Nordic/Scandi leg through Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and Norway, all before returning here to the UK and wrapping up with a two show finale in London on 25th and 27th July at Wembley Stadium. In classic E Street Band fashion, it’s a long summer tour of European football stadiums, and if this is anything like the other half-dozen European tours of the last twenty-five years, it is not one to be missed. Tickets are still available, and can be found on brucespringsteen.net.

The 2024 World Tour is an extension of the 2023 World Tour, which is itself a rescheduling of the unannounced 2022 World tour. Bruce and the band toured Europe and the UK last summer on the 2023 World Tour, which included fantastic shows in Dublin, Edinburgh, Birmingham, and London. Prior to that, they toured here in the summers of 2016, 2013, 2012, 2009, and 2003, which is where the modern era of Springsteen European tours really began.

WHAT TO EXPECT?

The 2023 tour was one of the few times Bruce toured without promoting one specific album. Songs from his two most recent albums, 2020’s Letter To You and 2022’s Only The Strong Survive, form the backbone of the main set, but neither could truly be considered “well represented” with only half a dozen songs between the two records being played on any regular basis. 

The 2023 tour made headlines for a few things, and unfortunately some of them were not so positive. Over in the US, the ticket prices soared in comparison to the previous E Street Band tour (back in 2016), and fan response was far from understanding. It’s still a point of contention with American fans, so maybe don’t bring it up if you see them in the pit. Over here, tickets are not cheap by any means, but are certainly more reasonable. The 2023 tour in the US was also riddled with cancellations and postponements due to covid outbreaks and illnesses in the band.

The 2023 Tour was also notable for being the first Bruce Springsteen and E Street Band tour since 1988 to have a primarily static setlist. Over the course of their career, and particularly in the last 25 years, Bruce and E Street have gained a reputation for dynamic, wild setlists. European shows are particularly well known for this. Springsteen fans are notorious for seeing as many shows as they can, come hell or high water, because you’ll never know when he’ll play rarities like Wild Billy’s Circus Story¹, or Back In Your Arms², or From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come)³. You never know when he might play for nearly 4 hours and 15 minutes⁴ or bring out The Roots⁵ or Paul McCartney⁶. You never know when Bruce might decide to open with New York City Serenade,⁷ or even play the last 4 songs from The Wild, The Innocent, and The E Street Shuffle in a row⁸. You never know when he might come out hours early, before the doors officially open, and play 8 songs on acoustic guitar and piano for the die hard fans who have been queuing up for days⁹. You just never know.

With the 2023 Tour, however, that was no longer the case. The set largely remained set in stone, varying only slightly over the course of the year. Several shows in a row even had the exact same setlist, song for song – something that hadn’t happened with this regularity on a Springsteen tour, ever. The shows were also shorter than before, and a few of the expected Springsteen ‘bits’ such as taking sign requests and crowd surfing were no longer present.

All that being said, the 2023 shows were, in a word, tremendous. The set was fantastic. By using the new Letter To You material to anchor a journey through memory and mortality, Bruce was able to find new depths in classic epics such as Backstreets and revitalize setlist standards like Wrecking Ball and Because The Night with new context and urgency. The shows were emotional and ferocious, and played with an intensity entirely unexpected for a band 50 years into their career. At just about three hours, they were shorter than previous tours, but with an average of 26-28 songs, it’s clear that most of that time was cut from stage banter, not the songs themselves. The shows weren’t surprising or exhausting, like they used to be, but they absolutely delivered.

Oh, and by the way, through all of that, Bruce was suffering from peptic ulcer disease since at least mid-summer.

After rescheduling some shows in the latter half of last year and taking time to recover, Bruce is better. The 2024 performances so far have changed the game entirely; the shows are longer and the sets more varied. Bruce is going off setlist more, calling audibles and taking sign requests, and he’s playing local-specific songs such as Viva Las Vegas in Sin City and Youngstown in Ohio. It’s clear Bruce is enjoying his re-found energy too – take a look at this video from his Instagram feed where he’s clearly thrilled that the show has gone to 3 hours and 19 minutes! “Now we’re talkin” he says, indicating that these next batch of shows may go even longer.

So what can we expect for 2024 in Europe? Well, we can expect the themes of mortality and memory to remain. The songs Letter To You, Ghosts, Nightshift, Last Man Standing, and Backstreets are still bound to anchor the set, at least thematically. The encore standards will likely remain the same as well – Born To Run, Dancing In The Dark, and Tenth Ave Freeze Out can be expected to close out every show, although the other 3-4 songs to be played in the encore is now less certain (bank on a selection from: Glory Days, Twist & Shout, Detroit Medley, Bobby Jean, and Born In The USA). Finally, you can expect I’ll See You In My Dreams to be the very last song played; solo, acoustic and after the rest of the band has left the stage. It’s absolutely beautiful, so do not leave early and miss it.

Between these songs, you can expect a mix of classics and rarities. Hits like The Promised Land, Because The Night, Prove It All Night, No Surrender, Hungry Heart, The Rising, Wrecking Ball, and Badlands are bound to be at most – if not every – show. But with the rising change in setlists and the resurgence in sign requests, some of these will invariably be dropped for new favorites and one-time performances. As the setlists open up and we head into summer temperatures, the show will inevitably pivot from an emotional ride to a house party.

This playlist can serve as an example setlist, of sorts:

Check out more Springsteen inspired setlist playlists HERE

_{(live renditions that might accurately represent a 2024 performance are used wherever possible.)}

SHOW DAY

Bruce almost never has an opening act, and has been starting his shows on time or even 5-10 minutes early, so don’t be late. Famously, Springsteen shows are long, and you can expect his set to last anywhere from three to four hours, without any breaks. So yes – you should eat first. Make sure to pace yourself with drinks – you don’t want to be running to the toilets during Jungleland. And wear comfy shoes!

You’ll find Springsteen fans queueing up outside the venue, but the majority of us will be in pubs and bars nearby. Thanks to online communities such as the facebook group Spring-Nuts, pre-show meetups are bound to be organised for pretty much every show.

Nicki Germaine Book Signings

Photographer Nicki Germaine was lucky enough to shoot Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band in 1974 at Liberty Hall, in Houston, Texas. These photographs have been published now in an excellent book, Springsteen: Liberty Hall. Nicki is selling and signing books at select cities on the tour:

• Cardiff: 5th May, 2pm, at Cardiff Brewhouse and Kitchen
• Cork: 15th May from 6pm at Goldbergs Cork
• Dublin: 18th May from 4pm at The Address Connolly 
• Milan:  2nd June, 4pm, at the Diecisei.shop store
• Stockholm: 17th July at the Story Hotel

You’ll never know who might show up to these – don’t be surprised if you see members of the E Street Band! There are bound to be more signings and more details announced, so it’s best to pay attention to Nicki on social media:

Facebook Twitter Instagram

THE PIT QUEUE

For many of the Springsteen faithful, if you have a front-of-stage, golden circle, or standing pitch ticket – and for many of us, there’s no other options – queuing up can begin days before. As of this writing, the pit queue has begun for Cardiff, and the show is still 4 days away. Springsteen fans – particularly in Europe – have adopted a system that works really well. If you have a ticket that can theoretically get you right in front of the stage, here’s what you’ll want to do:

1. Show up to the venue as early as you can! We’re talking days before, here (we don’t officially endorse queuing days ahead – be safe and sensible always!)
2. Find the “queue”. It will likely just be a few fans at this point, possibly under a tent or pop-up marquee, and it won’t be run by venue or tour personnel. 
3. One of those fans will put your name down on the list and write your number in the queue on your hand. You’ll also be told when the next roll call is.
4. You’re now free to leave and go eat, sleep, or explore the city. Just make sure you’re back for the next roll call. They’re usually 2-3 times a day.
5. On show day itself, plan to be at the venue from the first roll call until after the show ends. You’ll likely be able to leave and come back between the early roll call and lunchtime, but it’s possible you’ll need to stay.

HUNGRY HEART AFTER PARTIES

Hungry Heart is a Springsteen-dedicated club night, run by two truly die-hard Bruce fans, and at Cardiff, Belfast, Dublin, and Sunderland, they’re hosting after-parties. You can see details and buy tickets here. Hungry Heart events are always a good time and an excellent way to burn off the post-show energy. You won’t be disappointed!

LISTENING BACK

Ever since 2014, Bruce has officially released soundboard recordings of (nearly) all E Street band shows at live.brucespringsteen.net. Shows are available to stream or download in a variety of formats, and you can also buy them on CD. They’re usually available within a week of the performance, with cover art taken from photographs of that show.

Live.brucespringsteen.net also operates an ‘archive series’ when Bruce isn’t on tour, releasing concerts from before 2014. Some excellent European E Street Shows include Helsinki 2003, Stockholm 1988, and London 1981.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Side-effects of seeing Bruce Springsteen include, but are not limited to: post-show highs, post-show blues, attempting to learn the guitar, attempting to learn the piano, writing songs, writing poetry, writing articles about seeing Bruce Springsteen, and, most commonly, buying tickets to the next Springsteen show.

This European tour is followed by a US summer tour of arenas and stadiums, and then continue into November for a tour of Canada. There are no other dates scheduled at this time, but rumors are heavy that Bruce will then go on to tour Australia and New Zealand in early 2025. Springsteen and The E Street Band have never toured Europe three years in a row, and given the age of Bruce and his band – Bruce is approaching 75 and the majority of his bandmates are of similar ages – it is, sadly, highly possible that this might be the last ever E Street Band tour in Europe at this scale.

But of course, people have been saying that since 2009, which is now 15 years ago…

1. Kilkenny, 2013 ↩︎
2. Dublin, 2016 ↩︎
3. Amsterdam, 2009 ↩︎
4. Helsinki, 2012 ↩︎
5. Denmark, 2012 ↩︎
6. London, 2012 ↩︎
7. Rome, 2016 ↩︎
8. Rome, 2013 ↩︎
9. Helsinki, 2012 ↩︎